5 Creepy Changes The Government Forced On Movies& Tv Reveals

Some displays and movies put their agenda right in your face: Transformers was made to sell playthings and Camaros, Battlefield Earth was made to placate the space aliens that live inside John Travolta, and Alvin And The Chipmunks 3: Chipwrecked was blatantly advocating for the total genocide of the Danish people. But sometimes a Tv prove or movie’s agenda isn’t so clear, because it has been influenced at the highest levels by people you wouldn’t expect …

# 5. The Government Made Networks Add Anti-Drug Messages To Their Shows

In 1997, the Office of National Drug Control Policy decided that Americans weren’t sufficiently frightened of drugs, so they got Congress to give them a billion dollars to buy ad hour from networks. They then insisted that the networks do their civic obligation and sell the time for half-price. Because when you run the whole country, every day is Black Friday.

The networks patently wanted that space to be used for something more profitable, like ads for Windows 98 and Pogs. So the ONDCP built them an offer — work anti-drug messages into the scripts of their depicts and they could get their ad slots back. The networks constructed money, the government got their PSAs, and the people of America learned about the dangers of drugs from the best possible source: sitcoms!

Sometimes producers were explicitly asked for anti-drug episodes, like when Chicago Hope , your mom’s favorite ‘9 0s hospital drama that didn’t star George Clooney, excavated up an old script about a mass overdose at a rave that had previously been rejected for being irredeemably terrible. The ONDCP also reviewed scripts to portray drug use “accurately”( read: hyperbolically ruinous ).

Kids who go to raves would plainly view these characters as authorities on the subject .

The number of depicts with anti-drug messages tripled after the ONDCP started their initiative, but everyone involved insisted that this was all a complete coincidence. “We just happened to realize drugs were terrible at the exact same day this suitcase of fund arrived! ” Hollywood said, unconvincingly. Obviously, the initiative was a bust: After a few years, the ONDCP analyzed their data and cancelled the program, concluding merely that they had vastly overestimated the persuasive power of Tim Allen.

# 4. The U.S. Military Supported Black Hawk Down In Exchange For The Removal Of A Rapist

The Pentagon and the CIA have offices dedicated exclusively to providing technical consultation, equipment, and other support to movies in exchange for script edits that construct the military look better, which is how Top Gun became a recruiting tool for the Navy as well as vaguely homoerotic beach volleyball leagues. At first, Black Hawk Down seems like an odd project to support, considering it’s about the Battle of Mogadishu, which is widely deemed to be a first-class fuckup. What was supposed to be a quick raid to capture key activists descended into a daylong combat that left 18 Americans, two U.N. soldiers, and hundreds of Somali fighters and civilians dead. No Kenny Loggins power ballad could gloss over that.

The freeway to Mogadishu’s danger zone has significantly more corpses than it does guitar solos .

But the Pentagon liked how, in-between firefights, the characters exchanged grizzled, patriotic man-ologues that were the verbal equivalent of having an American flag shot into your chest by a T-shirt bazooka. They figured that regardless of the politics surrounding the combat, we should still be proud of the soldiers who fought it … except for John Stebbins, who was later sentenced to 30 years in jail for repeatedly raping his 6-year-old daughter .

Yeah, it’s hard to root for a violent, incestual pedophile , no matter how many stirring speeches he gives. The Pentagon pressured the movie’s screenwriter to change Stebbins’ name and, because they were providing military equipment and training to the actors, he had little option but to agree. So John Stebbins became John Grimes, a rookie soldier who learns valuable lessons about combat, camaraderie, and most importantly , not raping children.

“Oooooh. Do not do that. OK, got it! ”

# 3. The Red Dawn Remake Changed The Villain To Avoid Angering China

The 2012 remake of Red Dawn , which stimulated Rocky IV look like a nuanced meditation on Cold War politics, needed a new foe for a new century. So after a screenwriter Googled “communism” and selected “newest outcomes first, ” Red Dawn went into production with China as the updated 21 st century invaders of America. Regrettably, the screenplay for this delirious xenophobic fever dreaming leaked and angered one of China’s state-run newspapers, which accused Red Dawn of planting “hostile seeds against China” that would “sprout beanstalks of capitalism” and “unleash the giant bees of Western civilization to pollinate the minds of the proletariat.”

All right … maaaaybe we made up the last two quotes.

Studio executives , not willing to hazard offending a foreign nation( and, more importantly, its massive box office ), ordered the invading country changed to North Korea in post-production at a cost of$ 1 million and what little credibility the movie was clinging to. This mostly involved digitally editing all the Chinese flags to Korean ones and coming up with a new opening that explains how North Korea was abruptly capable of occupying the United States despite being so underfunded and technologically backwards that they’d have trouble invading your personal space.

North Korea can’t afford that many new flags .

“We were initially very unwilling to make any changes, but after careful consideration we constructed a way to make a scarier, smarter and more dangerous Red Dawn that we believe improves the movie, ” said the producer of a film that was universally panned for being idiotic nonsense and made $44 million against a budget of $65 million. After all the postpones and run put into watering down the film’s amazing political message, it ended up not even being released in China, because while the movie was no longer actively offending the Chinese government, their citizens continued to not give a shit about the terrible reboot of an ‘8 0s political exploitation flick.

Hey, did we mention that in the original script, China was able to invade since they are controlled America’s economy ?

Some demonstrates and movies put their agenda right in your face: Transformers was made to sell dolls and Camaros, Battlefield Earth was made to placate the space aliens that live inside John Travolta, and Alvin And The Chipmunks 3: Chipwrecked was blatantly advocating for the total genocide of the Danish people. But sometimes a TV display or movie’s agenda isn’t so clear, because it has been influenced at the highest levels by people you wouldn’t expect …

# 5. The Government Made Networks Add Anti-Drug Messages To Their Shows

The networks patently wanted that space to be used for something more profitable, like ads for Windows 98 and Pogs. So the ONDCP constructed them an offer — work anti-drug messages into the scripts of their proves and they could get their ad slots back. The networks made money, the government got their PSAs, and the person or persons of America learned about the dangers of drugs from the best possible source: sitcoms!

Sometimes producers were explicitly asked for anti-drug episodes, like when Chicago Hope , your mom’s favorite ‘9 0s hospital drama that didn’t superstar George Clooney, dug up an old script about a mass overdose at a rave that had previously been rejected for being irredeemably terrible. The ONDCP also reviewed scripts to portray drug use “accurately”( read: hyperbolically ruinous ).

Kids who go to raves would plainly view these characters as authorities on the subject .

The number of proves with anti-drug messages tripled after the ONDCP started their initiative, but everyone involved insisted that this was all a complete coincidence. “We just happened to realize narcotics were terrible at the exact same hour this bag of fund arrived! ” Hollywood said, unconvincingly. Plainly, the initiative was a bust: After a few years, the ONDCP analyzed their data and cancelled the program, concluding merely that they had vastly overestimated the persuasive power of Tim Allen.

# 4. The U.S. Military Supported Black Hawk Down In Exchange For The Removal Of A Rapist

The Pentagon and the CIA have offices dedicated exclusively to providing technological consultation, equipment, and other support to movies in exchange for script edits that build the military appear better, which is how Top Gun became a recruiting tool for the Navy as well as vaguely homoerotic beach volleyball leagues. At first, Black Hawk Down seems like an odd project to support, considering it’s about the Battle of Mogadishu, which is widely deemed to be a first-class fuckup. What was supposed to be a quick raid to capture key activists descended into a daylong combat that left 18 Americans, two U.N. soldiers, and hundreds of Somali fighters and civilians dead. No Kenny Loggins power ballad could gloss over that.

The highway to Mogadishu’s danger zone has significantly more corpses than it does guitar solos .

But the Pentagon liked how, in-between firefights, the characters exchanged grizzled, patriotic man-ologues that were the verbal equivalent of having an American flag shooting into your chest by a T-shirt bazooka. They figured that regardless of the politics surrounding the combat, we should still be proud of the soldiers who opposed it … except for John Stebbins, who was later sentenced to 30 years in jail for repeatedly raping his 6-year-old daughter .

Yeah, it’s hard to root for a violent, incestual pedophile , no matter how many stirring speeches he devotes. The Pentagon pressured the movie’s screenwriter to change Stebbins’ name and, because they were providing military equipment and training to the actors, he had little option but to agree. So John Stebbins became John Grimes, a rookie soldier who learns valuable lessons about combat, camaraderie, and most importantly , not raping children.

“Oooooh. Do not do that. OK, got it! ”

# 3. The Red Dawn Remake Changed The Villain To Avoid Angering China

The 2012 remake of Red Dawn , which built Rocky IV look like a nuanced meditation on Cold War politics, required a new enemy for a new century. So after a screenwriter Googled “communism” and selected “newest results first, ” Red Dawn went into production with China as the updated 21 st century invaders of America. Unfortunately, the screenplay for this delirious xenophobic fever dream leaked and angered one of China’s state-run newspapers, which accused Red Dawn of planting “hostile seeds against China” that would “sprout beanstalks of capitalism” and “unleash the giant bees of Western civilization to pollinate the minds of the proletariat.”

All right … maaaaybe we made up the last two quotes.

Studio executives , not willing to risk offending a foreign nation( and, more importantly, its massive box office ), ordered the invading country changed to North Korea in post-production at a cost of$ 1 million and what little credibility the movie was clinging to. This mostly involved digitally editing all the Chinese flags to Korean ones and coming up with a new opening that explains how North Korea was abruptly capable of occupying the United States despite being so underfunded and technologically backwards that they’d have trouble invading your personal space.

North Korea can’t afford that many new flags .

“We were initially very unwilling to make any changes, but after careful consideration we constructed a style to make a scarier, smarter and more dangerous Red Dawn that we believe improves the movie, ” said the producer of a film that was universally panned for being idiotic nonsense and made $44 million against a budget of $65 million. After all the postpones and run put into watering down the film’s mystifying political message, it objective up not even being released in China, because while the movie “re no longer” actively offending the Chinese government, their citizens continued to not give a shit about the terrible reboot of an ‘8 0s political exploitation flick.

Hey, did we mention that in the original script, China was able to invade since they are controlled America’s economy ?